It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature, on
the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the Appearance in Court.
Three changes occurred now that we entered on the case for the defence.
Two of them I will mention together, first. The figure was now in Court
continually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always to the
person who was speaking at the time. For instance: the throat of the
murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the
defence, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own
throat. At that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful
condition referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the
speaker’s elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the
right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker
himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted by
either hand. For another instance: a witness to character, a woman,
deposed to the prisoner’s being the most amiable of mankind. The figure
at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the
face, and pointing out the prisoner’s evil countenance with an extended
arm and an outstretched finger.
The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most marked
and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it; I accurately state it,
and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not itself perceived by
those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably
attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to
me as if it were prevented, by laws to which I was not amenable, from
fully revealing itself to others, and yet as if it could invisibly,
dumbly, and darkly overshadow their minds. When the leading counsel for
the defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at
the learned gentleman’s elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat,
it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a few
seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with
his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness to
character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most certainly did
follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest in great hesitation
and trouble upon the prisoner’s face. Two additional illustrations will
suffice. On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause which was every
day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes’ rest and refreshment,
I came back into Court with the rest of the Jury some little time before
the return of the Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I
thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the
gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very decent woman,
as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed their seats or not.
Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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